Pope Francis promotes priest who denounced pedophilia in Chile’s clergy

 Pope Francis holds the weekly general audience at the Paul VI Audience Hall at the Vatican, August 11, 2021. REUTERS FILE PHOTO

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis on Wednesday announced a promotion for a Chilean priest who was one of the first to denounce child sex abuse in the clergy in his country.

Andres Gabriel Ferrada Moreira will become secretary of the Congregation for the Clergy from October, the number two position in the body responsible for the training of priests.

Moreira, 52, was ordained as a priest in 1999 and holds a doctorate in theology which he obtained in Rome.

He spoke out against the actions of the pedophile priest Fernando Karadima, who died last month in a retirement home in Chile aged 90.

Karadima, whose duties at one time included the training of priests, was accused of abusing young boys throughout the 1980s and ’90s, a scandal that rocked the church in Chile.

A Vatican canonical court found him guilty in 2011, and in 2018 he was defrocked by Pope Francis.

Moreira, who was not himself abused by Karadima, testified against him in the Chilean courts.

Since the scandal broke, Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of seven members of Chile’s church hierarchy, accused of having covered up the activities of numerous pedophile priests.